


The fall

by EnryS



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Because that's what they are, F/M, Gen, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Kidnapping, Psychic Violence, Torture, Twins are mutants, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-05-16 16:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5832028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnryS/pseuds/EnryS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He felt the impact. He heard the cracking of the man’s neck that snapped under the touch of his forearm. He heard the little whisper, the muffled cry almost entirely swallowed by a death that had come too sudden, too fast to leave a proper echo in the air.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Pietro stood as still as the corpse before him and waited to feel what should have followed: anger, disgust, sorrow―guilt.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Nothing came.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been thinking about this story for a long time, even if for a long time I didn’t think this was something I could ever write about, and, once I started writing, I didn’t’ think I was going to post it (since it’s basically a bunch of headcanons and kinks—all that my mind has built during my many, many years as a fangirl). Eventually, my friends encouraged me in doing so, and so here we are :D  
> Everything influenced me: comics, animated series and movies about X-Men; the amazing – and my favorite – Maxicest fic “If wishes were horses, we would rule the world” by **epicureanEmpath** ; and random books and movies as well, but, for sure, comics have a privileged place (they inspire my fantasy more than everything else).  
> So: this is a different version of the twins’ origins story, and although it’s Maximoffs centered ~~because they’re all I care about~~ , it won’t be exclusively about them.  
> The first part, “The fall”, is about the twins being in a horrible situation and how they got there, and it evolves around the manifestation of their mutant powers, with a special focus on their (especially Pietro’s) relationship with their father ~~s~~. Also, I wanted to write about Django and Marya for a long time, and so I did it ;)  
>  I have to thank a special friend, the lovely **AryYuna** , for being my beta reader (you're such a darling! <3 ) and **Dhely** , as usual, for her friendship, her advices, and her love for Erik and the Twins <3.
> 
> [One last thing: since the fic has a lot of flashbacks, to make the reading easier I specify that the asterisk indicates the changing of a PoV in the same time line, while the horizontal line indicates that a flashback has begun/finished]
> 
> I hope you’ll enjoy it.

 

 

He felt the impact. He heard the cracking of the man’s neck that snapped under the touch of his forearm. He heard the little whisper, the muffled cry almost entirely swallowed by a death that had come too sudden, too fast to leave a proper echo in the air.

Pietro stood as still as the corpse before him and waited to feel what should have followed: anger, disgust, sorrow―guilt.

Nothing came.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it boy?”

Pietro didn’t move. Stillness felt safe, somehow. Weird, definitely, especially for him, but safe: by standing still he felt as if he could defer whatever would come next—because, well, he knew better than hope for something good.

His eyes moved in a parabola along the white walls of the big and empty room until they reached those of the man that had just spoken, the man that had just made him kill.

The man who owned him.

Arms crossed on his chest, in his usual military uniform, Stryker looked at him with a hideous satisfied grin.

“How’s he doing?” he asked, without even turning his head to the scientists behind the glass wall.

“Two minutes, maybe a little less.”

Stryker made a weird expression.

“The subject is coming around faster than last time.”

 _Subject_  was the least offensive nickname the young mutant had experienced so far.

The Colonel grabbed Pietro’s chin and stared, examining him. “I guess it doesn’t come as a surprise,” he said to Pietro’s face, but clearly not talking to  _him_ , and then made a creepy noise, as if he wanted to laugh but was not able to—which, to be fair, was not far from the truth at all. He adjusted his glasses on his nose. “He’s growing.”

Stryker moved Pietro’s head both sides, and then sighed.

“Imagine what you could do in a year, boy. Imagine what you could do when you’ll finally stop behaving like a little brat and start to cooperate.”

Still motionless, wondering how—and _if_ —he could ever actually be more cooperative than that, Pietro blinked. Once, twice. A warm, uncomfortable wave radiated from his chest to every inch of his skin. His body was working off the drugs and it always happened in a quite unpleasant way. There had been a time when Pietro had defined that  _painful_. Now he just felt the need to clench his jaw and stretch his neck.

Stryker rapidly withdrew his hand, thoughtful.

“He’s coming around  _a lot_  faster” he remarked. Beneath Striker’s usual cold expression, Pietro couldn’t help but notice the man’s disappointment. “See to fix this.”

Pietro took a small step back and immediately cursed himself for doing so. He didn’t want to show them that he was scared, but when something needed to be  _fixed_ , he knew he should expect the worst.

 _Just kill him_ , a voice whispered inside his head.  _Kill this motherfucker like you just did with this poor folk here._

In less than a second, more than a thousand reasons to do that ran through his thoughts. But the one reason not to was so much more important than everything else.

 _Wanda_.

And then the pain came. Sharp like a blade, the electrical shock cut his spine in two.

Pietro hit the floor with a dull sound, but he didn’t even feel the impact: his mind was already trapped inside a nightmare filled with creatures biting his flesh, burning his bones, and piercing, cutting, scratching, severing.

One, two, three never-ending seconds of blinding agony. Then, he could scream.

Not that that helped.                                                                    

Actually, it only made everything worse. Pietro hated it—hearing his own inarticulate pain cries, feeling pity for himself, being forced to surrender to his captors and lose whatever dignity he still had left. When in his cell, chained with huge lead restraints and heavily drugged, Pietro felt strong—or he could pretend to be, telling himself the tale that if they needed to take all those precautions just to force him still, that meant he must be _really_ powerful. But when that pain came, and he wasn’t strong enough to fight it, everything was ripped away from him, leaving him exposed, face to face with what he truly was: just a scared, weak, stupid little boy.

A stupid little boy that couldn’t help but step back in a childish, humiliating and vain effort to escape the pain. A stupid little boy that couldn’t avoid to think about his parents while lying on that floor, still praying for a rescue, wishing to have his life back, to go back.

To his home.

To his parents.

To Miss Roxana’s white cat, the one with eyes of different colors.

To the big fountain in the square that froze in winter.

To him and Wanda sliding on it and coming home all wet and with their teeth chattering. Laughing.

 _Just count,_ the voice said.  _Count and keep them away from here. Keep them safe._

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

He took a breath. He screamed again.

_Just keep counting._

Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine… thirty-three… forty-two… forty…

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Numbers.

White, aligned on the blackboard just like tiny chalk soldiers.

Miss Žaklina’s beautiful handwriting.

Pietro was so bored.

He’d figured out already that the  _x_  was a 9, but he didn’t say it. Last time he’d been accused of cheating, so he’d decided to keep that to himself.

Hiding a yawn behind his hand, Pietro turned to the window: it had started snowing, but it wasn’t cold enough yet and the snowflakes melted on the ground. He gazed mesmerized at their unpredictable whirling movement: every time that he thought he knew where one of them was going, it swiftly changed direction with a gracious pirouette—almost making fun of him.

“Pietro,” Miss Žaklina put her hands on her waist and, with her most ironic tone, asked: “are we bothering you?”

“Sorry” Pietro muttered, shifting on the chair.

In the right corner—exactly on the opposite side of the classroom—Wanda turned her head in his direction and smiled sympathetically at him. He quickly showed her his tongue and winked. His sister giggled beneath her teeth and brought her gaze back to the blackboard.

Then, something funny drew his attention: there was a fly flying in front of him, just behind Vera’s blond ponytail, only that it wasn’t a common fly, because it was flying so slowly that it seemed almost frozen in the air.

Pietro blinked. He could see the insect’s wings going up and down and up again, and when he raised his hand he realized he could easily close his fist around it—and so he did it.

Vera’s ponytail slapped her in the face and she turned to Pietro, glaring.

“Why did you do that?”

Pietro recoiled, confused.

“What?”

“Why did you hit my hair like that?”

“I didn’t hit your hair!” he replied. “I didn’t even  _touch_  it!”

“Pietro! Vera!” Miss Žaklina scolded them. “What’s going on?”

“He threw my hair in my face!” Vera repeated, offended, and Pietro didn’t know what he could say to defend himself: he was sure he hadn’t touched Vera’s stupid hair, and yet he knew Vera wasn’t exactly lying either, because he’d seen her ponytail moving, just as if an invisible hand had pushed it.

Miss Žaklina sighed and opened her arms. “Pietro, what are you doing? And… what do you have in your hand?”

A weird silence fell on the class, and by now everybody’s eyes were pointed on him. Pietro bit his lower lip and muttered: “A fly.”

“A fly?”

He waited a couple of seconds before deciding to open his fist. The insect flew away and that—for some reason—made everybody laugh.

Wanda stared at him rising her eyebrows with a familiar look on her face. The _seriously, Pietro?_ look.

Pietro answered with a little shrug. The  _not my fault_ shrug.

Vera crossed her arms and grinned.

“Well, you could apologize, at least.”

“For what? For  _not having hit_ your stupid hair?”

She brought her face closer to his and whispered: “Liar.”

“You are the liar!”

“Okay, enough, both of you,” Miss Žaklina said, but not fast enough to prevent a kid to yell:

“Pietro wants to kiss Vera!”

Pietro had never,  _ever_  in his life before, been so much embarrassed. He felt like he was on fire.

“What? Of course I don’t!”

Wanda made a grimace—the one she used to make when he would say something really,  _really_  wrong.

In Vera's eyes, Pietro could see how offended her pride was and he realized he shouldn’t have said that, especially not the way he had.

“As if I’d ever kiss  _you”_ Vera hissed, and then turned on her chair and crossed her arms in a quite dramatic way.

It would have ended like that, just another stupid children’s fight, but then she had to add: “a  _gypsy_!”

Fists clenched, Pietro jumped to his feet, furious. Simultaneously, Wanda had gotten up as well and was gazing at him shaking her head—the  _please Pietro, don’t!_ kind.

He opened his mouth with the worst kind of curses ready on his tongue, but he hadn’t the time to say a word. Wanda had raised a hand as if she wanted to stop him—obviously worried about the troubles he’d find himself in if he’d dare to say a curse aloud in class. Pietro would swear he just saw a thin red lightning cross the room, while a load rumble filled the air.

A big piece of plaster fell from the ceiling just between the blackboard and Miss Žaklina’s desk. 

 

 

*

 

“Can I tell you a secret?”

In the pitch dark of their small bedroom, Wanda smiled.

Night had always been their time. Once in bed, lights off, they would engage in interminable conversations about the most disparate topics (did aliens exist? And—say they did—what kind of technology were they supposed to have? What would they look like? What would they do on Earth? Would they try to take control of humankind—that was Pietro’s point of view on the subject—or would they hide among humans for research purpose—this one was her own). They would go on for _hours_ until one of their parents would yell from the room next door  _Go to sleep right this very moment, you two!_  Or until their speculations would turn into something more delicate, private: a nightmare, a weird thought—a secret.

It had always been like that. It was almost as if, hidden in the darkness, buried under tons of blankets, everything was allowed, and they could let literally everything that came up to their mind enter their conversations—all the things they’d never dare to talk about while sitting at the breakfast table. It all happened with such candor that, the day after, they often wondered why they’d never spoken about that particular thing before.

“There’s nothing funny about it, Wanda” Pietro muttered annoyed, twitching under his duvet.

Wanda rolled on her left side, meeting a spark of light coming from his irises: her brother’s eyes were so bright she could always find them—even in that total darkness. “I’m not laughing.”

He grunted. “But you’re smiling.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

Wanda lifted herself on an elbow, her smile going from ear to ear.

“You can’t even  _see_  me, Pietro.”

“But I  _know_  you are.”

He knew that, exactly as she knew he had on a grumpy face. Wanda covered her mouth to giggle, but her brother heard her anyway—he was too close not to.

He kicked his sheet to make himself more comfortable. He would always move in bed as if the mattress was burning —or as if there wasn’t in the universe a way for him to be still  _and_ comfortable. “Said you were” he muttered in a satisfied tone.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear your secret.”

“Now I don’t want to tell it anymore.”

“Come on, grumpy, tell me!”

Wanda stretched her leg out of her sheets and rubbed her foot against her brother’s leg. His bed was less than an arm faraway from hers—the best solution their parents had come up with when the time’d come for them to stop sharing the same bed.

Pietro jerked, making the bed’s springs shriek horribly.

“Wanda!” he yelled, biting his tongue realizing he’d raised his voice too loud. “You’re ice-cold!”

“Come on, tell me! I wasn’t laughing at you, I was just smiling by myself.” She waited, but Pietro didn’t say a word.

Wanda sighed. He was extremely moody recently, while, as if to compensate, she felt more radiant by the day. Mama had said that Pietro was just growing, and when Wanda had argued that they were the same age, Mama had smiled and said that Wanda had grown already, because she was a girl, and that was how things worked.

She didn’t exactly catch what her mother meant, but, in a way, it seemed to make sense.

“Pietro.”

Silence.

“Well, whatever. I already know what you were going to say.”

Pietro snarled. “I really doubt it.”

“Want to bet?”

“Sure! But I warn you: you’re going to lose this time, sis.”

Wanda grinned, well aware about what she was going to unleash upon herself by saying that, and yet unable to resist the temptation.

“You wanted to kiss Vera”, she spitted out, and then closed her eyes and protected her face with her hands. The pillow hit her and before she could take a breath her brother was on top of her. She couldn’t tell why she was trying so hard to make him upset—which, by the way, was hardly challenging lately—all she knew was that she missed how they used to play, she missed rolling on the floor or the grass with him, she missed him tickling her—she missed _him_.

And if growing up meant building walls between the two of them, then she didn’t want to.

She twitched, and as soon as she managed to free an arm, she grabbed her own pillow and fought back. Pietro didn’t expect the attack to arrive from the side and groaned spectacularly, pretending to be in pain. Giggling, Wanda managed to free a leg too, and intertwined it with Pietro’s, making him fall on her side. He jumped on his knees in a flash and she got up as well. They grabbed their hands and started pushing.

A beam of light passed under their door and they froze as they stood: a ridiculous reproduction of an ancient marble statue.

When silence remained silent and none of their parents came in to yell at them, they automatically stopped the fight and lay down together, panting softly.

Pietro grunted against her neck.

“I did not want to kiss stupid Vera.”

“I know,” Wanda whispered. “But you’re really bad at talking with girls.”

“That’s not true. You’re a girl and I talk with you all the time just fine.”

“That’s different.”

Wanda caressed Pietro’s hair until she found his scar. It was a bad scar, roughly stitched by the first aid doctor who only cared about stopping the bleeding as soon as possible, but since it was hidden under his hair, it was only visible when Pietro shaved his hair—which he did very rarely.

“Does it ever hurt?”

Pietro muffled a laugh.

“It’s been almost three years, Wanda.”

“I know—I remember. It’s just—”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Wanda shrugged, thinking of how odd Pietro’s white hair had appeared all covered in blood. “It’s just that it was so bad that it seems weird that now it never hurts—not that I’d like it to be different.”

“Yeah, it was  _baaaad_ ,” Pietro said mimicking a ghost voice—or what he thought should be a ghost voice. “There was blood everywhere, and the wound was so deep you could see the poor child’s skull underneat—” Pietro coughed because she hit his chest to make him stop, and then they started to laugh together, covering each other’s mouth to not wake their parents up.

“Anyway, it doesn’t hurt,” he reassured her. “It only hurts my pride when all of you people make fun of me because a stupid pigeon made me fall from the ledge.”

“Come here,” Wanda made more room for him in her bed, and he slid closer. “You know,” she said, “I was not joking about the secret: I know what it is.”

 “I know you do,” her brother whispered. “Because I know yours.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 Wanda had always loved winter.

She would close her brother’s blue sport coat on their way home from school and he would protest that he didn’t feel cold; they would tap their feet on the doorsteps to make the snow fall from their boots before coming inside; Mama would make hot tea and fried bread—sugar for her, cheese for Pietro—and they would tell her how their day had been.

 _Don’t speak with your mouth full_ , Mama would say.

Wanda sighed, her fingertips lazily tracing waves on the wall of her cell.

It was winter when they’d been taken. She wondered what time of the year was now, and whether there—wherever this  _there_  was—it would snow in winter.

She remembered how bewildered she’d been when Tate had told them that not everywhere in the world they had snow. Pietro had laughed and asked  _how can these people tell the difference from other seasons of the year_?

Tate had said that seasons are different even without snow.

Wanda had thought it was a pity though, to not have it.

Snow meant so many memories to her, and one of her firsts and favorite ones among them: she and Pietro running into the courtyard, laughing, trying to catch the snowflakes with their tongue. The memory was old and a bit evanescent, and Wanda couldn’t really tell how much of it was true and how much had been compromised by her parents’ telling throughout the years instead. She remembered the feeling, though: the snowflakes that turned hot on her tongue; her arms stretched out, spread like wings; the wind that caressed her face as she made pirouettes and the world whirled all around her.

It felt like freedom.

Wanda sat on the floor, hugging her knees.

Footsteps came from the corridor. She raised her chin and brought her gaze to the glass door. Rumors became shadows and shadows turned into bodies made of flesh and bones.

Stryker and his gofers.

Wanda instinctively caressed her collar—that satanic device that kept her powers locked away.

Their visits were a rare event, so they always made her anxious. Apparently, they didn’t know what to do with her anymore: they had analyzed her in every possible way (except for an autopsy) but, with their huge disappointment, they hadn’t been able to find anything in her biology that could explain how her power—whatever it was—exactly worked. A few times they had tried to loosen that device so that she could partially use it and they could at least  _see_ it working. They’d asked her to do things, little things, just like:  _open the door._

 _She makes things happen_ —that was what she’d heard one of her captors whisper. But Wanda thought they were wrong. It could seem as if she would simply express a wish, but truth was that even if she could alter the way things were, the result was unpredictable: one time the handle had fallen from the door. Another time hinges had loosened. On her last attempt, the scarlet spark that bolted from her hand had broken the door right in the middle: a big crack slashed the door almost in half, as if a thunder just hit it, and Striker had waved his hands so hysterically for his collaborators to turn her collar on again that Wanda had thought he was going to dislocate his shoulders.

From the other side of her cell’s glass wall, Colonel Stryker grinned viciously at her, turning the screen of a tablet on.

“I want to show you something.”  

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

His sight began to focus again when the guards jerked ruthlessly his arms behind his back. They were locking the restraints again, but Pietro didn’t fight them. Besides, even if he’d want to, he was too hazed—just as for the regular schedule: electrical shock, drugs, and then the shackles.

At least this time they hadn’t blindfolded him.

Pietro spat on the floor breathing heavily, while his eyes adjusted to the darkness and his mind struggled to come out of it. With a loud clank the metal lock secured his knees so that his legs stayed bent, and then the guards proceeded to attach his ankles to two reinforced straps tied to the metal belt around his waist. At first, that had been the hardest thing to sustain: forced in that position for such long periods of time, his legs ached horribly and the need to stretch them had nearly driven him crazy. With time, though, he’d found out that the arms shackles were even worse: they weighed mercilessly on his shoulders and back. They were simply impossible to ignore—or forget.

He couldn’t even sleep, chained in that position, not really, not  _willingly_. To think that there had been a time in his life when he had simply lain down and waited to gently drift into the quietness of sleep was such a weird thought now—now that sleeping only meant passing out of exhaustion or pain.

But what he used to have didn’t mean anything right now, and it didn’t matter anyway, because that body, that sad thing over there trapped in those bulky and heavy restraints, was someone else’s. That was not even a human being. It was only a puppet, and for sure it was not him.

And that was probably for the best, since that had been the same kid that—just to name one—had gotten a concussion, several stitches on his head and a broken arm because he had felt like climbing the school façade (and that hadn’t foreseen the pigeon that had appeared from nowhere making him lose the balance).

 _This is Pietro_ , Tate used to say.  _He always thinks he does know best, only he’s always wrong_.

Tate would say it as a joke—his way to cheer Mama up when Pietro made her worried sick by doing something reckless and stupid—but his father was not wrong: Pietro always thought he knew best, and of course he could have never resignedly accepted that captivity, not without giving himself a chance first.

So he had tried, during the first week in the facility, as soon as his metabolism had started to work off the drugs. The fetters were tight and heavy, but Pietro hadn’t been able to stop thinking that if he’d move his arms fast and long enough, in the end the chains would break. And he’d been right: it had worked. Only that the effort had drained him, so when the guards had figured what was going on, he’d had no strength left to accomplish his  _great escape_. 

But then—of course—he’d still been too confident, and instead of stopping for _one single second_ to wonder why Striker had reacted to his escape’s attempt in such an unexpected comprehensive manner—especially since Pietro was well aware of what that man was capable of—he had only waited impatiently for the moment he could try his luck again and, when the right moment had come, he’d almost made it: he had shattered the restraints, broken the door, he could have disappeared in a blink of an eye but not even that time his plan had been perfect. He had forgotten he still had that vile contraption on the back of his neck, so, before he could find his sister, the guards had given him a severe electrical shock—the worse he’d ever experienced—and then…

Pietro shuddered, as every time he recollected that heinous memory.                          

They’d dropped him like a flour sack in front of Wanda’s locked room, and the first thing he’d managed to see through the black spots that still filled his visual had been her beautiful green eyes.

And the astonishment in her gaze, the heartrending way in which she had tried to dissimulate such unexpected surprise: that had been the first time they could see each other since they’d been taken there, and she had shouted his name but her voice had died in her throat before she could say it whole. She had bandages on her elbow pits and appeared exhausted, but when their eyes had met it was almost as if, for a couple of seconds, the horror their lives had turned into had vanished from her mind—Pietro could tell from the way her eyes were shining. One could have said she seemed even happy—if only happiness weren’t a thing that had gone lost forever, swallowed by the blood that, one cold winter morning, had dug dark holes into fresh snow.

She couldn’t know what he’d just done—why he was there.

She couldn’t know.

 _Thank your sweet brother for this, young lady_ , Colonel Striker had said.

Pietro had twisted his body the best he could so that he could look at the man. And he had begged, still shaking for the pain that hadn’t left his body yet. He had begged through tears of impotent rage that he wasn’t able to hold back once he’d figured out what Stryker intended to do. His voice was broken and sounded so pathetic, but Pietro couldn’t care less and kept apologizing in every possible way.

He had begged and begged and begged— _everything but please not this._ He had sworn he would never run away ever again; he’d promised he’d do everything they wanted to.

Stryker had smiled at him—Pietro would never forget the way the man had smiled at him.

_Oh, I know you will._

Then she had screamed, and her pain cry had hit Pietro straight in his brain.

Guilty and shattered, not for a single second he had dared to look away from her, from her eyes that stared erratic into the void while her body shuddered and twitched, at the mercy of a pain he knew too well. He couldn’t take her pain away, he couldn’t suffer in her place. All he could do was watch, so that maybe this time he’d learn.

Now, more than a year had passed from that day, or maybe even more for what Pietro knew, and they still knocked him out every time they needed to move him from one place to another, they still drugged him and chained him and starved him to be sure he would not have the strength to run away but, in the end, all that zeal was pointless: that one lesson, Pietro had learnt well, and he would never dare to run away, not again.

Not when he knew who would have to pay the price.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

His mother was adamant.

“This is outrageous!” she shouted, putting the dishes on the table so frantically that she almost broke one of them.

Pietro stared at his shoes, not daring to look at her. He had seen his mother angry a lot of times—mostly at him—but never like this: she seemed determined to burn the city to the ground.

For once not directly responsible of her fury Pietro didn’t know how to act and, ironically, felt guiltier than ever: had he known his mother would react the way she had, he would have never told her about the blood samples. But she’d immediately seen the band-aid on his arm—she had developed a sort of a _hyper sight_  when it came to locate his bruises/scratches/cuts—so he had to tell her. And now she was furious.

Moreover, the way their mother was putting the whole thing made him feel like an idiot.

Fact was, even if he wasn’t particularly fond of needles, he wasn’t scared by them either, so he had followed his teacher and had let the man take a sample of his blood without even blinking. His sister, at least, had argued a bit when her turn had come, talking about authorization forms and stuff. And that was probably the reason why she had her chin up and shook her head in disbelief—proving to share their mother’s indignation—while Pietro could only look at his shoes.

“—Without asking for our authorization, without even notifying it!  _Nothing_! They just… take children’s blood! Like it’s normal! And we’re not even allowed to know  _why_?”

Pietro glanced at Wanda and quickly decided that his mother wasn’t really expecting an answer to that question. Actually,  she seemed to be speaking to herself alone—or to an invisible outraged audience.

“Ah, no.” Mama put the big pot of potatoes in the middle of the table and slapped a cloth into the sink. “If they think it’ll end like this, if they think they won’t hear from me—” she stopped, suddenly staring at Pietro bewildered, as if she had forgotten about him being there.

“Pietro, would you mind to sit down with your sister, or aren’t you hungry? Tate would be home in minutes”. Then she sighed.  “And why are you looking at me that way? Good Heavens, for once that you haven’t fallen from…  _somewhere_!”

Wanda couldn’t hold back a laugh and Pietro widened his arms in disbelief.

“Seriously?” He felt indignant: as if he didn’t do anything else in life but  _falling from places_! “It only happened  _once_!” he protested, but no one seemed to care about his objection: Mama continued to keep herself busy in order to contain—not well, apparently—her anger, and Wanda started filling everybody’s dishes, just as if she’d just had a premonition about his father entering the door in that exact moment.

“It doesn’t seem it’ll stop soon” Django said, closing the door behind him. He was talking about the snowing.

He turned his back and his smile, as always, infected everyone: even Mama, despite everything, couldn’t help but smile back at him. Tate kissed Wanda’s forehead and sat down quite dramatically.

“What’s the tragedy of the day?” he asked, eventually sensing the tension. “The boy is not bleeding, so I assume it must be something new.”

Django ruffled Pietro’s hair, well aware that that joke hadn’t been funny for a long time now—at least for Pietro.

Mama sat down adjusting her hair. “We’ll talk about that later. Now let’s not make the dinner get cold.”  

 

 

Pietro woke up in the middle of the night with his stomach rumbling. He was always so much hungry lately. He had reached the point he felt ashamed of himself, but he could do nothing about it.

He glanced at his sister and waited a few minutes: sometimes, not always, Wanda would wake up shortly after him without any particular reason—it just happened. So, before leaving, Pietro waited to be sure that she was not going to wake up.

Wanda seemed soundly asleep though, so he got up and went to the kitchen searching for some leftovers. 

Pietro had barely touched the kitchen door when the voice spoke.

“What if they find out?”

It was his mother.

 _Eavesdropping is impolite_ , Wanda’s voice said in his head. But Pietro’s sense of morality was not that rigid, and he instinctively crouched down to peek into the door keyhole.

“They won’t find anything.” His father’s voice was low. He seemed concerned—no: he  _was_  concerned. Pietro could tell it from the way he was scratching the back of a fork with his thumb. “You’re going too far with this, Marya. The twins said that they took samples from all their classmates as well. It was probably a routine check-up or— hell if I know why they do things like that! This government is so fucked I’m not surprised by anything these days. But don’t be scared, darling: I’m sure everything’s all right.”

Mama kept touching her hair, biting her lips and bringing her hands on her hips in a sort of creepy, mesmerizing dance. Pietro had never seen her that way and, deep down, felt that he should leave immediately—that his parents’ conversation was definitely not for him to hear.

“What if they run a DNA test on those samples, Django?”

His father recoiled. “Why should they?”

Mama shook her head.

“I don’t know! But what if they do and they find out?” Mama’s voice was shaky and made Pietro feel extremely uncomfortable: she seemed ready to burst in tears and, well,  _Mama would never cry_. He’d never seen her cry, not even when he’d cracked his head.

“They won’t.”

“Good heavens, everybody already believes that our people  _steal_  children from their cradles! What if they find out that the twins aren’t really ours? I tell you what: nobody would believe us, nobody would believe if we told what happened that night. And they will take the children away from us!”

“Please, love, you’re overreacting. Think a minute: DNA tests are extremely expensive. They don’t do this kind of things without a good reason, and I’m pretty sure they won’t do this to every child in Transia just for… what?  _Just to check_? Nonsense! Besides, they don’t have our DNA, so they couldn’t compare them even if they wanted. I’m sure there’s nothing to be worried about.”

“Maybe I am overreacting! But what if I’m not? What if I’m not? I just—I just can’t lose my children. Not again, Django! Not  _again_!”

Mama started sobbing and fell into Tate’s big arms. She seemed so thin and frail, like a little bird with a broken wing, and Pietro, who had listened to every word feeling like he was still sleeping and it was all just a weird dream, sat on the floor almost oblivious of the fact that he wasn’t exactly supposed to be there.

“Hush, love. We won’t lose them.”

“Not again!” Mama whispered through her sobs. “Oh, please, Good Lord, I can’t—”

“Look at me,” Tate’s voice was steady, as strong as a rock and yet so amazingly warm. “We won’t lose them. No one will touch the kids.  _Look_   _at me_.”

Mama finally lifted her eyes on him.

“I won’t let them” was Tate’s final statement. And then— as if he’d suddenly gained the ability to see through closed doors—his father’s gaze fell on the door and he squinted at it. “Who’s—?” he muttered as he stood and started coming towards the door.

Caught by surprise, Pietro moved awkwardly and bumped his elbow into the little table on which the phone was. Of course, the phone fell casting a terrible noise into the quietness of the night. He cursed, jumped to his feet and found himself in front of an open door and two puzzled faces.

“Pietro?” Django raised a hand trying to reach his son’s shoulder but Pietro took a small step back.

 _No_ , Pietro thought, staring at himself into the eyes of the man who had been his father until half a minute before.

_No._

Hurt and betrayed and ashamed, Pietro glanced at the back door and ran outside. 

 

 

*

 

 

An unusual and sudden noise woke her up, and before Wanda could realize that Pietro’s bed was empty, her brother’s name reached her, shouted aloud by her mother.

Wanda ran out of their room: hands in her hair, her mother stared outside the open back door. “He’ll freeze!” she yelled, while Tate was putting his boots on.

In the corridor, framed pictures had fallen from the wall and everything was upside down.

Wanda brought a hand to her lips: her brother’s secret wasn’t secret anymore.

“What happened? Where’s Pietro?”

“Go back to bed!” her father ordered harshly. Then he turned to Mama and whispered: “Don’t worry, I’ll find him.”

Wanda glanced outside and saw it was still snowing.

“Where is Pietro?” she asked again, tapping one foot on the floor in frustration, but no answer followed: Tate just ran outside, disappearing in the snowy night, and Mama leaned against the wall staring into the void. Her eyes were reddened, she must have cried.

“Mama,” Wanda said in a whisper, looking terrified at her brother’s boots that were exactly where he’d left them—next to hers. His coat too was still hung in the entrance. “What happened?”

Her mother put a hand on her forehead, glanced at Wanda only for a moment, and then slid along the wall to sit on the floor.

 

 

When the doorbell rang, shaking her and Mama from their trance, Wanda felt like a year had passed. Looking at the watch on the wall, she realized that it had barely been an hour.

“Lost something?”

A policeman stood in the doorway, his hands on the shoulders of an angry Pietro wrapped into a wool blanket.

Mama jumped on Pietro and squeezed him, crying and kissing him on his face and hair and hands, while muttering a considerable amount of  _thank you_  to the policeman.

“I found him unconscious behind the courthouse. I recognized him immediately. I told myself:  _if the white haired kid isn’t Django’s boy, my name is not Yan anymore_. I’ve given him a hot chocolate. He seems all right but he didn’t say much of anything. Do you think he needs to see a doctor?”

Mama shook her head, obsessively caressing Pietro’s face. “Please, come inside.”

Wanda stood where she was, grabbing the door’s jamb. Pietro hadn’t looked at her, not even for a moment. His blue eyes were so cold and not only he hadn’t apologized to Mama yet, but, against any reason, he seemed the one waiting for an apology.

“Is he a sleep-walker?” the policeman asked lowering his voice, probably thinking that that way the question would seem less impolite. Mama sighed.

“Only sometimes.”

Wanda recoiled, astounded. She never imagined her mother could lie—well, not to a policeman at least. Moreover, it was a stupid lie: how could Pietro be still alive after walking barefoot in the snow for something like three miles? Apparently though, this objection didn’t seem to cross the policeman’s mind at all, and he just nodded satisfied—probably feeling proud of himself for his brilliant supposition.

Since Pietro still hadn’t looked at her, Wanda tried to summon his attention with the power of her stare—but it didn’t work. Her brother just kept glaring at the fireplace as if it was his biggest enemy.

“Pietro darling, how are you? Are you feeling all right?” Mama asked, and her voice was so shaky, almost shy, as if she was afraid of speaking to Pietro—or of what he could answer her.

“Can I go to my room?” was her brother’s only reply. His tone was so harsh it almost hurt her.

“Don’t you want to have a hot bath?” Mama whispered. “Aren’t you freezing?”

“I’m fine. Can I go to my room?”

Wanda waited for the moment her mother would come back to herself and start yelling at Pietro for his absurd attitude, but she just kept caressing him and, sighing, said that he could go, if he wanted to.

The door slammed loudly.

“I couldn’t find him anywhere!” Tate’s voice came from the corridor and one second later he appeared in the living room, where they all stood. “Let’s call the poli— _Pietro_!”

Tate rushed into the room and grabbed Pietro by his shoulders. “Don’t do that ever again!” he shouted. “Do you hear me? What were you thinking?”

Again, Pietro didn’t bother to say that he was sorry, and just leveled a glare on his father. Wanda had never seen a look like that on Pietro’s face, and for a moment she feared that Tate could slap him for that. But Tate, exactly like Mama before, didn’t seem to mind Pietro’s behavior at all: instead, he vigorously stroked his back, asking in a loop if  _he was all right._

“Can I go to my room, now?” Pietro asked again, his voice still as cold as his gaze.

But Wanda knew her twin too well not to grasp the slight rift that was spoiling his tone, and suddenly understood: Pietro wasn’t being rude on purpose. He just needed to hide himself as soon as possible because he was afraid he could cry any moment—and God forbid if Pietro would ever cry in front of an unknown man  _and_ his father.

“Yes,” Tate muttered, sounding half relieved and half defeated. “Yes, go.”

Wanda gazed at her brother passing by her: he didn’t deem her worthy of even a glance. Torn between the desire of hugging him and throwing a shoe to his head, Wanda closed the door of their room and hissed: “What the hell is wrong with you?”

He sat on his bed and turned his back to her.

“Leave me alone, Wanda.”

She crossed her arms and sat next to him. She didn’t deserve that. Whatever was that had made him so upset, it wasn’t her fault, and she didn’t deserve that.

“You made everyone worried sick! Why did you run away?” She grabbed his left shoulder and tried to make him turn. “What happened, Pietro?”

“They lied!” he shouted, and then bit his lip for having shouted and threw angrily the blanket on the floor. Wanda waited, uncertain about what to do. She had thought that their parents had discovered that he was, well, _his_ _secret_. But what he’d just said made no sense at all to her, and she suddenly had no idea of what could’ve happened.

“They lied” he said again, this time in a hoarse whisper.

Pietro grabbed his hair with both hands, and curled himself up. All his boldness and pride and anger—gone.

Wanda came closer, overwhelmed by an unknown sadness. When he was hurt or sad, Pietro could build walls so tall and thick around him that—even if she had always had a privileged access to his heart—it took her a considerable effort to reach him. And she’d never felt him more distant than this time.

“About what?” she muttered, shyly.

“About everything.”

Wanda let her arms slide under his and hugged him from behind. She rested her chin on his right shoulder and stroked his face with hers, sighing.

“We weren’t the only ones with secrets, then.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“I want to show you something.”

Wanda looked at the screen and shivered when she saw her brother on it.

Pietro was staring at something, completely still. He wasn’t chained. She didn’t wonder why he wasn’t running away—she knew why, and she  _hated_  to know why. What made her feel nauseated, though, was the way he was standing: like a soldier.

And, like a soldier, he was waiting for orders.

Her fists were clenched, so tight that she was hurting herself, and just when she thought that Stryker only wanted to show her how much control he’d managed to gain over her brother, Pietro disappeared in a blur. The next thing visible on the record was a dead body and her brother staring at it without even blinking.

The screen turned black again and Wanda brought back her gaze to Striker, struggling to keep her face blank and not to give him the satisfaction to perceive how she felt, how frustrated and horrified and desperate she was for her brother—her gentle, kind, sweet Pietro. She was devastated for not being free to hug him and tell him that everything was all right, that it wasn’t his fault, that he was not a monster no matter what they had made him do—but she had to be be strong.

She would not please that horrible man by showing her suffering. She would _not_.

“So what?” she asked, as cold as she possibly could.

“I thought you’d be proud to see how well he’s doing. I am proud. He’s my greyhound.” Stryker turned to a guard on his left side and they both laughed as if he’d just said the funniest joke in the world. “I always wanted one, but my wife is allergic to dogs. Now, your brother is not the kind of greyhound I had in mind, but how’s the thing?  _If life gives you lemons_ … and I can’t say I’m disappointed, on the contrary: this one has potential, I’ll make him become a real champion—the one who wins all the races and gains trophies. His taming is going quite well so far but, sadly, I still have to be a strict master. These animals, you know, they’re not easy to train. They are all muscles and adrenaline; they’re always so tense, ready to spring. You can think you’ve tamed them, and then they snap and run away. So, it’s up to you to not give them the chance: if a pet behaves badly, it’s not the pet’s fault, but the master’s, am I wrong?” He paused, as if he truly expected her to take part to his insane monologue. “Anyway,” he went on, “the good thing with beasts like your brother is that they’re incredibly tough, so you can be very,  _very_  hard with them—if you need to be sure they’ve learnt the lesson—and you don’t have to worry that they’ll bleed to death in the night. My greyhound here, he heals very quickly.”

Wanda swallowed in horror, losing for a few seconds her grasp on reality, just like every time she would think about her brother hurt, bleeding, chained in his cell. _How many night he must have spent that way?_

Stryker titled his head. “What? Did I say something that disturbed you? No, darling, I’m not a cruel master. I even set up a lot of games for him, so that he doesn’t get bored. Even if, to be truly honest with you, I doubt he enjoys them.”

He laughed again, unable to contain the pleasure that torturing Pietro—and her—clearly gave him.

“Again: _so_   _what_?” she spitted out, burning with rage. “Because if you just tried to make a point with all this  _greyhound bullshit_ , I’m afraid you have to say it again, with simpler words this time.”

He gazed at her in a strange way, as if he was positively impressed. “So I got it right about you two,” he whispered “the smart twin was indeed the female.”

Hadn’t she had that device on her, Wanda knew that the building would collapse on itself for the rage she’d cumulated in those few minutes. She opened her mouth to reply, but she felt something weird happen, and, when she lowered her gaze, what she saw startled her: her fingers were glowing.

She lost a heartbeat. If Stryker saw it—

But Stryker had just turned his head to his name shouted from the corridor. All the guards did the same and she closed her fists trying to hide what was happening to her.

The man must’ve made all the way running because he was almost breathless.

“He’s escaped!”

Wanda widened her eyes, her heart torn between hope and terror.

“The boy?” Stryker shouted in a terrifying growl.

“No,” was the answer, and the Colonel recoiled in shock, as if he’d immediately understood who they were talking about.

From the way he glared, Wanda had the feeling that, given the chance, Stryker would have never allowed the guard to say that name aloud—not in her presence. But he was not fast enough to stop the other man who said, clear as a bell:

“Lensherr.” 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Erik rubbed his temples. They had just reached their safe refuge on their way to Antarctica: a lousy shanty just outside Corrientes. Despite the fact that she’d managed to succeed in what had been a quite extraordinary escape, she’d been silent the whole trip, and though her silence wasn’t unusual in itself, Erik knew her well enough to understand when something was troubling her—and there were not many things in the world that could truly trouble someone like Mystique.  

Once closed the door behind her, she made the blonde woman in the leather jacket disappear, allowing the astounding beauty of her skin to become visible again.

It was mesmerizing to gaze at her transformation. No matter how many times he’d seen it, every time it worked like a spell: you just could not look away. Erik had taught her to use it on the field, to make a weapon of it, but she had done more: she’d turned it into _art_.

Erik sat heavily on a bed.

“What are you so worried about?”

“Nothing” she said, but a bit too fast: her lips crumpled in disappointment, just like every time she betrayed her self-control. Stretching her neck in a sinuous movement, Mystique sat on one of the two straw chairs. She crossed her legs, rested her elbows on the seatback, and moistened her lips.

The ceiling fan turned lazily above their heads.

“When I entered Stryker’s office in Washington to collect the information I needed about your prison, I’ve—I’ve discovered something else.”

Erik rested his forearms on his tights. He was intrigued, even happy to hear that. He’d been locked up for  _years_ , and he desperately longed for that: information, action, secrets. For his war to be fought.

“Is he up to something?”

“When is he not?” she smiled a knowing smile. “Anyway, here’s the tale: a couple of years ago that madman started wandering through Eastern Europe, mostly in countries impoverished by recent wars. Using a program called «International Children’s Health Care» as a cover, he was able to enter schools and take samples of blood from almost every child.”

“Looking for the X-gene?”

She nodded.

“In less than a year Striker managed to put together a detailed archive and, in the meantime, he restored a weapons’ deposit from World War II, somewhere in Siberia: now it’s a perfectly equipped facility to imprison people—mutants,  _ca va sans dire_ —and experiment on them.”

Erik felt an uncomfortable chill run down his spine. He’d been imprisoned in a plastic hell for three long years, but he’d been—at least—subjected to laws, and benefited from civil rights. What Mystique was talking about was a structure placed under no other kind of control but that of a madman, and that reminded Erik of another facility he’d had a first-hand experience.

“He’s got  _children_  in there?” He clenched his fists, staring at his friend taking a folder from her bag.

“Yes, but not many. Just two.”

“At least he’s not being greedy.”

“Well, as much as he wished, he could not just put his filthy hands on every mutant child he’d discovered: it would draw too many unwanted attentions. So he had to choose, and his choice fell on these kids: a boy and a girl, twins, children of a Romani couple, living in a God’s forsaken country on the Bulgarian border. He took his time to study them, he got prepared, waiting for the right moment to make his move. And, in the end, luck smiled at that son of a bitch, because when the kids’ powers started to manifest and people started to freak out, the family decided to leave the town.”

Erik’s lips twisted in an ironic smirk.

“Lambs led to the slaughter.”

“Yeah” Mystique agreed. “A very wrong move. The parents probably hoped to keep their children safer that way, but, isolated, they were such an easy target: irresistible. Striker must have thought that no one really cares when bad things happen to these people, and he was proven right: he murdered the parents, kidnapped the kids, and authorities didn’t even bother to lead a decent inquiry.”

 _There’s nothing new under the sun_ , Erik thought, bitter but not surprised. He had been locked away but not long enough to find a world where minorities and all those who lived on the fringes of society weren’t still—and always—the first victims of a war.

“Well, despite the obvious fact that these children have all my sympathy and that I will, sooner rather than later, put an end to that disgusting man’s life, what’s the point about all this, exactly?”

“That they’re still alive. Striker’s been having them for more than a year, now.”

Erik leaned back in his chair once again. He got the point. Logic would want that, once taken from those kids what he needed, he’d burn their bodies so fast that no one would ever know they were there in the first place. Every day that Stryker kept them alive increased the risks that what he was doing spread out—and the Russians would hardly be pleased to find out that unauthorized experiments were led on their own territory by a foreign government.

“This thing comes out, he’s done. He loses everything. Why? Are these children  _that_  gifted?”

She shook her head slowly, shrugging, not for a moment breaking eye contact with him. “Their powers are interesting—especially the girl’s—but, I mean, are they worthy of all that money and time—not to mention the risks?” Mystique smiled. A creepy, almost sad, smile. Nothing Erik had ever seen on her face before. “And then I figured that I was wrong. He did not take them because they were an easy target. He took them because he wanted  _them_ , and so I dug more to understand why.” His friend sighed, passing him that thin yellow folder with a heavy gaze on her face. “These documents here, they’ve been ten times harder than your prison’s access codes to obtain. So, yes, these twins are precious, but not exactly for their powers.”

She crossed her arms, her lips sealed and her gaze steady: she was not going to tell him more.

“You don’t want to finish yourself this fascinating tale you’ve told with such a deep engagement?”

“Read that, Erik.”

Erik glanced at her one last second, turning the first page. “My dear, it’s so  _unlike_  you, to hesitate.”

Then, a couple of icy eyes stared at him from a picture.

A boy.

A boy with a weird hair color. A girl stood beside him, smiling at the camera. They were like day and night and yet it was so obvious that they were related. Erik smirked absentmindedly for a moment, thinking about how unpredictable DNA could work and then, the most unexpected and unlikely thing happened to appear: written in bold in the middle of that first page, there was his name.

«Biological father»

As for a magic trick, the big green eyes of the girl in the picture summoned another pair of big, green eyes.

“Erik,”

The room trembled but Erik didn’t mind.

He read more.

Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. Altering-reality powers. Ability to move at the speed of sound.

Transia. Though he’d never been there, Erik remembered that country: it was so close to the one he’d lived in, when he was not completely aware yet of being so much more than a human—another time, another world, another life. A red flame blazed painfully into his memory: sixteen years separated him from that moment but Erik couldn’t help feeling like he was there once again and, once again—in spite of all the promises he’d made to himself—powerless.

_Magnus! Our daughter!_

The fire.

_She’s still inside!_

And the little girl— _his_  little girl—desperately calling for him.

_Papa!_

“Erik—”

_Save me!_

The screaming.

Magda had covered her womb while stepping back, away from him. She’d hugged her chest, just before she’d called him monster and run away, leaving him alone, surrounded by the ruins of their house and with Anya’s little corpse to bury. He’d seen that as a simple gesture of a frightened woman, out of her mind with shock and grief. But he’d been wrong: there was more.

She was…  _hiding_  something. She was—

“Erik! Stop it!”

He lifted his gaze and it all ended. His power didn’t usually escape his control when he was in anger—not anymore. It must be because of those years of inactivity.

Mystique breathed again, and let go the fierce grasp on his arm. “Are you okay?”

His only answer was an austere nod. She didn’t believe him, but, of course, Mystique knew better, and stayed silent for the following minutes.

“What do you want to do?” she asked, eventually.

“Take them.”

She titled her head.

“Okay, if that’s what you want. I’ll be fun: Striker has been too confident that you wouldn’t be around anytime soon, so he didn’t bother to keep the building metal-free. So: we’ll take the kids, then what? They don’t have a family anymore. Where would they go? What do you plan to do? To keep them with you? They’re not puppies, and, besides, we don’t even know what Striker did to them. They could be—” She stopped, and sighed, sitting on the table in front of him.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, Erik. We… you and I, we’re not that kind of people. We can’t have a family. We can’t just… be  _parents._  And even if we had the nerve to bring lives into this world, that doesn’t mean—”

“It does!” he shouted, not entirely sure of what he meant with that. Mystique recoiled, lifting her eyebrows, more in surprise than fear. She’d never feared him, and she was not going to start now.

“They’re mine!” Erik hissed. “I won’t let  _him_  have them.”

“And what if that’s exactly what he wants?”

“I won’t let him have them.” Erik said again, speaking every word slowly, and steady. There was nothing else to discuss: he was  _not_  letting Stryker have his children.  _Ever_.

He’d rather kill them himself.

Mystique slid from the table and her fingers gently caressed his shoulder and neck. “Very well then,” she whispered, leaving the room. “I guess our itinerary’s just changed.”

The blades of the ceiling fan kept turning lazily above his head, and those two pairs of eyes were still staring at him from that old, yellowed picture.

A girl that looked just like the one he’d loved to look at, standing on the other side of a white fence, and to whom he’d given his grandmother’s necklace as a pledge of his love. A boy so similar to the one Erik was used to see reflected in the big living room mirror, until the day someone had knocked on their door and told them they no longer had the right to have a home.

Erik screwed up the sheets of paper and, with them, that little picture: he clenched his fist tighter and tighter and tighter until there was nothing to look at anymore.

_They are mine._

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

_Lensherr_.

Furious, Stryker glared at Wanda as if he was blaming her, as if he’d found her guilty of what’d just happened, and then he punched the glass so hard that she started and jumped back, almost losing her balance.

“What are you looking at, you damn witch?”

She could feel her heart hammering inside her throat and she kept recoiling in terror. He slammed his hands again on the glass and this time her legs betrayed her, and she found herself on the floor. He shouted something else but the panic she’d fallen into didn’t allow her to understand what it was. She curled on herself, trembling, foolishly trying to hide herself from him.

That man was just too frightening. Even after all that time and the horrible things she’d faced, he still managed to frighten her exactly like the first time she’d heard him shouting.

 _Lensherr_.

At least her hands weren’t glowing anymore, or it would be even worse.

“What?” he growled. “You no longer want to be like the heroines of the books you’ve read when you pretended to be like everyone else and not just a freak, an abomination of nature like that other funny thing of your brother? You no longer want to know what the point was, mh? I tell you what the point is: your brother is not your brother anymore; no matter how hard you keep lying to yourself. He is a pet. _My_ pet. He does what I tell him to, you’ve seen it: he takes a piss when I say so; he runs when I say so; he  _kills_  when I say so. He is  _mine_. It’s just a matter of time and he won’t even know your name anymore. He will look at you and won’t recognize you, and will be ready to kill you if I give him that order. And then, you too will do exactly as I say, just because that will be the only way you could still be somehow  _with_  him.”

Wanda was looking at that man but her mind was empty. She was not even thinking of Pietro. Everything was gone from her mind—everything except for that name.

 _Lensherr_.

That name meant nothing to her. She was sure she’d never heard it before and yet—somehow—that name was the only thing that kept her grounded on that planet.

“And it’d been a pleasant day so far,” the man said, his voice suddenly low and calm. He turned his back to her and walked away, but made sure she could still hear his words. “I guess I’ll have to go see my pet a bit to cheer myself up.”

Eyes full of tears, Wanda thought she’d just pounced on the glass wall, slamming her hands on it, kicking and screaming all her rage and pain. But that was not her: that was just the red ghost that lived inside her mind, the witch she’d been accused to be, while the real Wanda was only a frightened, weak little girl curled on the floor, frozen and impotent—a victim.

And she hated herself so badly because of that, for not being able to answer back, to shout him that he was wrong about Pietro and about her, that he knew nothing and Pietro would never hurt her. Never.

Pietro would never stop loving her.

Pietro would never…

She curled herself more, still on the pavement, suddenly so exhausted that her thoughts seemed so heavy they were almost painful. Adrenaline had gone from her body and had left a void that she knew would very soon make her fall asleep.  

Resigned, Wanda closed her eyes and as she did so, reality seemed to dismantle itself in front of her. She could not use her powers but they were still there, still inside her, and they still tortured her with those visions, with the infinite crossings of possibilities, the universes that could be, transforming and melting one in the other.

All the dreams that could come true, and her, in the middle of it all—powerless.

 _Lensherr_.

She was so tired. Her hands glowed again, only for a second.

But maybe she’d just imagined it. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The air, cold and sharp, whipped her on the side. She was getting used to it, even if she wouldn’t exactly say that it was pleasant.

“Look!”

Pietro stared at her from a space that had been void until a second before. He gazed at her with smiling eyes, holding a huge bag of chestnuts.

The way his hair used to stand when he stopped running hadn’t ceased to be funny for Wanda yet. Giggling, she caressed it trying to put a couple of locks back on his forehead. She could feel the cold still trapped inside his fine hair, and wondered how it would feel to run as fast as he could. She and Pietro had discussed the possibility that he could carry her, but he’d said he was too much afraid to harm her, and—of course—their parents had strictly forbidden such a dangerous thing.

September was almost over, and there weren’t secrets anymore in the Maximoff family.

The day after her brother had run away in the middle of the night, their parents had made what Wanda and Pietro used to call  _the speech,_ and informed them about the man—a sort of _god-man_ —that had come down from the Mount of Wundagore holding two babies wrapped in a blanket: he’d said they were called Pietro and Wanda, given them to Mama and Tate, and told them to take care of them.

So no, Mama and Tate hadn’t been too surprised to discover about hers and Pietro’s secret gifts.

 _We always knew you weren’t exactly ordinary children_ , Mama had said, smiling a sad smile. Back then, Wanda had thought Mama was sad because she’d talked about the other babies, the twins that had died. Thinking about that now, Wanda was not too sure that that was the reason.

Since  _the speech_ , however, Wanda wasn’t sure about a lot of things anymore.

She hadn’t reacted too badly about the adoption. She’d felt sad, she’d cried a bit too, but, in the end, she’d mainly felt grateful. Because her mother and father had loved her and Pietro and not once they showed their sadness, even if they must have felt that way—and so many times!—thinking about their dead children.

What truly tormented Wanda now, though, was the multitude of questions that haunted her thoughts day and night—especially those about her  _real_  parents. Who were they, and why did they abandon Pietro and her? Sadly, she was all alone in those speculations: Pietro—after months of silence and dirty looks—had finally forgiven Mama and Tate, but that hadn’t changed the fact that the topic was still off-limits. The whole thing had hurt her brother deeply, and Wanda didn’t want to make it worse, especially not when Pietro was finally happy and carefree once again.

“You shouldn’t have run,” Wanda said softly. “Someone could’ve seen you.”

Pietro shrugged. “No, they cannot see me, and you know that.”

He smiled at her and took her hand. He looked straight ahead as they walked down the small road covered in red and yellow leaves, and the sunset light hit his face making his pale skin almost golden, and his blue eyes not only brighter, but somewhat silvery.

Pietro was getting more and more confident in using his amazing speed, and seemed so at ease with his new self, as if he’d always been that way (apparently discarding the detail that for _months_ he’d kept passing out at least once a day). He enjoyed his special gift in a way that Wanda couldn’t fully understand, but perhaps that was because she was not nearly in control of her gift as Pietro was, and it had only manifested in a quite destructive and unwilling way so far.

 _We are like magical twins_ , Pietro had told her a couple of months before. Wanda had called him silly but, deep down, that thought had made her feel strangely excited and she’d slowly started to realize how amazing that thing was: she was sharing with Pietro something extraordinary, something unique, and nobody would ever understand how it was to be like them, to have those gifts, to have secrets.

To be  _special_.

It was just the two of them. Just them.

“Mama will be happy” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “She loves chestnuts.”

Pietro didn’t say that he knew that, he just nodded and smiled at her: his smile, white and bright against the sunset light, was so beautiful. Wanda thought that he’d never been more beautiful than then, and for a reason that she didn’t understand, she needed to look away from him.

And so she saw her, the little girl running away from her mother to collect her doll that had fallen in the trench alongside the road—and the big rock that was falling from the cliff face.

In that moment, Wanda didn’t think about anything in particular: she just didn’t want that to happen. She didn’t want the child to die.

So she raised her hand and everything went hot and then cold and she couldn’t see anything but red. A dull sound followed by a loud cracking echoed in her ears and she found herself on her knees, quivering and dizzy.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

The blast threw him more than ten meters away and when he opened his eyes again, without a clue of what’d just happened, Pietro was surrounded by a fog of dust. Through that hazed curtain, however, he managed to see the huge trunk of a tree that had suddenly broken and, in his fall, miraculously shielded a little girl from a landslide.

He shook his head and looked for Wanda. He imagined she’d been thrown away as well, but she was not near him, neither was she anywhere to be seen. Pietro jumped to his feet, ready to run to find her, but then he noticed something in the middle of the road, just where the fog was thicker. And it was glowing.

And it was  _red._

The wind dispersed that fog and with it Pietro’s hope that Wanda wasn’t involved: she was there, sat on the ground—thank heavens apparently unharmed—surrounded by an unnatural scarlet halo.

Pietro waited, tense and afraid, trying to figure how they could get out of that situation, trying to convince himself that it wasn’t that serious, and that they hadn’t truly screwed everything up for good. But the child’s parents weren’t the only ones that had seen that: a couple of workers and a woman holding an infant were there as well, and they were all standing, as still as statues, staring at Wanda. And the way those people stared was not reassuring _at all_.

“What—what are you?” the man held his daughter, after having taken her from under the trunk. His eyes were wide open, and he seemed both terrified and astonished. “A—a _witch_?”

Pietro lost a heartbeat hearing that, and his chest ached in sadness when he met his sister’s eyes.

Pietro was the one people used to look down on. He was the one coming home covered in mud because the older boys decided to  _dye_ _his hair a normal color_. He was the one whose back people whispered behind. Pietro never really liked anyone and nobody liked him, and that was just fine for what he cared, but Wanda… Wanda had only ever known smiles and kindness and nice words. He would know how to handle that hatred, but she did not. And Pietro felt so,  _so_  much angry because of those stares, because of the way they were making her feel, and he wanted to shield her—take those stares away from her.

And so he ran and put himself in front of her: he bared his teeth, clenched his fists, and got ready to fight if he had to.

“What are you looking at, you bunch of folks?” he yelled.  

Everybody gasped in surprise seeing him moving that fast. The woman with the baby cried and decided to leave, while the two workers started coming closer, glaring threateningly.

Pietro glanced at the little girl’s parents. He didn’t expect them to take Wanda’s defenses, but they could at least say something—something about Wanda _saving their stupid daughter’s life_.

But of course they just stood there, still staring in bewilderment.

“I knew you were a freak,  _whitey_ , but I never thought you were that much of a freak! Now I’ll have to tell my wife that she was right about you: she always said you were a devil.”

“Take another step and you’ll have to tell your stupid wife  _that she was right about me_  from an hospital bed!”

“Pietro—” Wanda muttered, grabbing his left sleeve, while the man had just stopped—probably weighing Pietro’s threat. “Please, Pietro, take me away.”

Pietro turned to her. A look was enough for him to understand that he needed to take her away immediately. He wanted to, he wanted but—

In a whisper—as if she’d just read his thoughts—Wanda said: “You won’t harm me.”

Pietro nodded, trusting her blindly.

“Hold on tight and close your eyes.”

 

 

 

 

“Nobody got hurt.”

Standing on the doorway, Django looked like a giant.

Behind his and Mama’s backs, hand in hand, Pietro and Wanda could do nothing but witness impotent to the ruin of their family: those who were supposed to be friends and that used to knock at their door with cakes or presents and a smile on their face, now would only come to suggest that they should leave the town.

And Pietro knew he and Wanda had caused it all.

“That’s not the point, Django, and you know it!”

Gavril worked with Django, they’ve known each other for something like ten years. They were friends, but now they glared at each other as if they were ready to slice each other’s throat.

“And what is the point?”

The other man sighed. “Don’t make everything worse, Django. I came here peacefully.”

“That was just _wise_ of you, then. Because I don’t like people threatening _my_ children. In _my_ house.”

“I’m not _threatening_ , Django. I’m just… I think you don’t realize the seriousness—the kind of situation we’re in.”

Django laughed a bitter laugh.

“And there’s where you’re wrong. I’m perfectly aware of _the situation_.”

“So why don’t you just explain us? The twins… Are they…  _What_  are they?”

Wanda held Pietro’s hand tighter, and Pietro couldn’t look away, taut and ready to run, overwhelmed with the awful, uncomfortable thought that his parents could turn on them. They were not even their real parents, after all, why wouldn’t they?

“Children!” Mama hissed, entering the argument. “They are _children_!”

Gavril raised his hands.

“Marya, please, both of you: I’ve always considered you good, honest people; great workers. _And_ friends. That’s why I came first. I’m here to talk to you because we’re friends.”

“Are we? And so why are you threatening my kids?”

“I am not.” Gavril shook his head, as if he was dead tired. “But they are…  _dangerous_ , and people—”

“They’re not dangerous. They never harmed anyone. And my daughter actually  _saved_  that child’s life, so why are we still talking about this?”

Gavril looked over Django’s shoulder and his gaze reached the two of them. Pietro pulled Wanda’s arm and put her behind his body.

“People say they’ve got the devil inside.”

Mama snarled. “Because they’re a bunch of ignorant and superstitious folks! Are they coming after us with pitchforks and torches? Is that that you’re implying?”

“Devil is here, I can tell.” Django muttered, surrounding Mama’s shoulders with his arm. “But he’s not in our children. Now, go away from my property.”

“Django, you’re making a mistake.”

With his sister clenched to his back, Pietro stared at Django stepping menacingly forward.

“Go away from my property!”

The other man recoiled, almost offended, and walked back, shaking his head.

“I’ve warned you. If something happens to you and your family, I’ll have my conscience clean. Could you say the same?”

Django slammed the door so harshly that it made Pietro flinch. He kept gazing at his parents’ backs, waiting for them to turn so he could look them in the eyes, and understand what they were thinking. When Mama finally turned and looked at them, after a time that seemed never-ending, Wanda started sobbing and left Pietro’s hand, running to her bedroom. He wanted to follow her, but Mama stopped him, caressed his shoulder and whispered: “I’ll go talk to her, sweetheart.”

Pietro crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, staring at his feet. He felt his father’s gaze on him, but he didn’t feel like facing it.

Of course, Django was of a different mind.

“Pietro,”

“I know,” Pietro said quickly—he had his speech ready: “I’ve been stupid and I shouldn’t have run. I’m sorry. I won’t do that again, no matter wh—”

His father grabbed him by the shoulders and Pietro immediately shut his mouth, gulping worried, unable to read his father’s expression. But, if that hadn’t been just _impossible_ , Pietro would have said that Django was about to cry.

“You’ve been very brave, Pietro Maximoff,” Tate said. “And I’m really proud of you.”

Pietro recoiled a bit, such unexpected those words had come, and, in spite of his astonishing speed, he found himself caught by surprise again when Tate hugged him tight.

They hadn’t hugged in a long time—Pietro hadn’t allowed that. He’d been too angry and hurt and he’d addressed it all on his father: his wounded ego had claimed that petty revenge and now Pietro felt so stupid—and sad.

Tate let go and Pietro had to control himself not to open his mouth in bewilderment when he saw his father’s reddened eyes.

“You’ve been brave and you’ve looked after your sister, and I know you always will.”

 _Of course I will,_ he thought, nodding at his father. She was his twin. She was… _Wanda_! He’ll always look after her.

“Do we—” Pietro asked, shyly. “Do we really have to leave?”

“I think that’s the best thing to do right now.” Django sighed heavily, and stroke Pietro’s back. “It’s late now, you better get some sleep.”

In the corridor, as hazed as if he were walking in a dream, Pietro crossed his mother. She smiled at him, kissed his hair, and said goodnight.

But Pietro doubted he would fall asleep.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Pietro flinched at the door’s harsh slamming.

He could almost always hear them coming but sometimes, like now, he was just too tired, too weak and hazed, and the sudden awakening from that drug-induced, dreamless trance caused him a terrible pain in his chest and back.

“’Evening, _Mr. Maximoff_!”

Bad sign. Stryker only called Pietro that when he was particularly upset: it was supposed to hurt him, to remind him of what he no longer had, of what Stryker had taken away from him: his humanity, his dignity. His name.

The colonel’s boots entered Pietro’s visual and next thing he knew was that a hand had grabbed him by his hair.

“What’s wrong? Did I just interrupt your nap?”

Though he didn’t know what, Pietro must have done something wrong because Stryker kicked him on the side. A cry died in his throat and he coughed in a desperate need of air. Pietro would have fallen back, but the weight of all the metal he was trapped in kept him still.

“Lights!” the man ordered. Everything went white and his eyes burned like hell. Still holding him by the hair, Sryker pulled Pietro’s head back, and then slapped him in the face.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty, and look at me!”

Pietro didn’t want to upset him more, but his eyes were hurting so badly even while he kept them shut, and he couldn’t even think about opening them. Not yet.

“Look. At. Me.” Colonel said slowly, before shouting: “Now!”

Grinding his teeth, Pietro moved his head sideways and eventually managed to open his eyes a bit. It felt like having them cut with a razor blade, but he didn’t give up: he could do it, he could handle it. He could not risk to upset Striker, he could not risk—

Pietro gasped in surprise and shock as he was hit by an icy jet of water.

The soldiers laughed.

“If he wasn’t before, he’s awake now, Sir.”

Pietro shook his head, breathing heavily, painfully. The I.V. attached on his arm kept poisoning him and he hadn’t eaten anything almost all day.  _Exhausted_  was not nearly close enough to describe how he felt. And now Stryker wanted to play games, or just beat him, or God knew what, and Pietro didn’t have enough strength for any of that. He could barely keep his eyes open and all he could see was nothing but unfocused shadows and white spots.

Stryker dried Pietro’s face with a tissue. “Better, now? Can you see me? Come on, I need your attention, now,  _Mr. Maximoff_.” He petted Pietro on the head. “I need to go on a business trip for a few days, and since you’re my pet and I’m responsible for you, I can’t risk you to misbehave while I’m away, I’m sure you understand that. Don’t you,  _Mr. Maximoff_?”

The words, Pietro could hear them. Somehow, he could understand their meaning too. But to figure what he was supposed to do, that was a completely different story.

To stay silent, perhaps, was the wisest option.

He closed and opened his eyes a few times until, finally, he was able to focus again: twenty-four black boots; twelve guards; twelve assault rifles; Striker’s glasses.

Stryker’s grin.

“Did you want to see me, Colonel?” a man asked, entering the cell. It was Wiez—one of the doctors. Albeit to call him so was quite unfair towards the category, considering that he would almost exclusively harm.

“Yes, doctor,” Stryker turned his back to Pietro. “I want you to keep the mutant off until I’m back. Let’s say… 72 hours?”

Dr. Wiez bent in front of Pietro and checked his eyes with his little flashlight. Then he adjusted his glasses on his nose. “I’m keeping him drugged all the time already. The preparation is inside the I.V., and is the most powerful thing we have.”

“Is this drug in his blood right now?”

“Yes, Sir. His pupils are still dilated.”

Stryker opened theatrically his arms. “And yet, as far as I can see, the kid is pretty awake.”

The doctor grunted, almost offended.

“His metabolism is complicated. We’ll find the perfect preparation, we’re almost there. But right now this is what gives a better result.”

Pietro couldn’t help but think the doctor was right. He’d experienced a lot of drugs since he got there. A couple of them had kicked him in the head hard enough to send him immediately out of games, but that kind of drug never lasted long. This one, instead, this one let him awake enough to follow Stryker’s orders, but it was just like walking in the mud, blind and drunk, and it made his chest ache the whole fucking time.

“Can’t you just… give him  _more_?”

“More? But—” the doctor’s voice was hesitating, and that was curious, considering that he was the one that had tortured Pietro without blinking countless times. “Well, I could. But I can’t guarantee that his liver and kidneys… I can’t guarantee that his heart—”

“He could die?”

“Yes, sir, that’s a concrete possibility.”

Pietro shivered. It had been an unwilling movement, and yet the soldiers immediately pointed their guns on him. Stryker turned himself and stared at Pietro: he seemed amused.

“You are afraid.”

Pietro lowered his gaze, ashamed. He was almost one hundred percent sure it had been an unwilling chill but, on the other hand, Stryker was right: Pietro _was_ afraid to die. Why, since his life was nothing but pain, fear, humiliation, loneliness and more pain, Pietro couldn’t tell. He should be relieved: death would free him from that hell, and yet, against every reasonable explanation, the thought of falling asleep and never waking up again had made him shiver in terror.

“You really shouldn’t be, boy.” Striker caressed Pietro’s hair, pretending to be nice. “Here’s a news for you: you’re not going to live a long life either way.”

“Colonel, if I may,” the doctor said. “I don’t think that increasing the dose is necessary. He’s perfectly under control—”

Stryker stopped him, waving a hand and sighing.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear: I want him knocked out until I’m back. And when I say  _knocked out_ , I mean it. Not like now, when I can wake him up by just fucking _yelling_ at him.”

Stryker turned back to Pietro and grabbed his chin. The man’s left hand caressed the boy’s hair in a disturbing way. Nauseated and angry, Pietro tried to recoil: a useless effort, as usual.

“If he dies, that’s too bad. But I’m quite positive he will not. He’s tough, and stubborn. _So_ stubborn. I don’t think he’ll give up and die, not whilst I’ve got his pretty sister here with me. You know, the only time I saw him crying has been when I hurt  _her_. Not even when I broke his leg, he was so much desperate. Sometimes I wonder if I should fuck him raw, just to see if that’ll make him cry.”

“Nah, Sir,” it was one of the guards. “I bet he’d enjoy that.”

They all laughed, and Pietro glared, baring his teeth, adrenaline running frantically through his body. The metal straps squeaked and slackened under Pietro’s arms’ sudden and wild movement.

Stryker’s eyes sparkled in fury.

“Don’t you try it!” he howled, making his slim metal baton swish. “Don’t you try it!”

The baton hit Pietro in the face, and everything turned black for a second.

“Don’t you even _think_ about it, you little piece of shit! Do you hear me?” Stryker hit Pietro on his back and arms again, and again, and again. Pietro curled the best he could under the strokes, shut his eyes and clenched his jaw, waiting for it to be over.

 _Tired already?_   A voice asked inside Pietro’s head when Stryker, almost out of breath, finally stopped hitting him.  _Too old for this? Or just too fat?_

Sore and hazed as he was, Pietro couldn’t hold back a creepy little laugh. The man grabbed his hair again and put that ugly mouth of his less than an inch from the boy’s face. “You’re having fun, little monster? Well, let’s see if this too will make you laugh: try that again, and I’ll break your legs so badly that this time they won’t heal and you won’t go anywhere  _anymore_ —I promise you that. And then, I’ll break your sister’s legs: I’ll smash her knees with a hammer. How much would you like to see that, mh?”

The colonel pushed Pietro back and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Are we clear?”

Pietro lifted his gaze, struggling to focus.

“Are we clear?” Colonel asked again, shouting this time.

“Yes” Pietro answered, feeling odd like every time he heard himself speaking, since that only happened once a month, if not less. Then he chocked for the baton that Striker suddenly pressed against his throat.

“Yes,  _what_?”

“Yes, Sir” Pietro croaked, out of breath.

“Very well.” Stryker released Pietro’s throat and then gave him a couple of pats on the head. “You see,” he turned to the doctor again. “That’s exactly the reason why I want you to keep him sedated: at the end of the day he’s a good pet, but he only behaves well when I’m around. He likes it the hard way.”

The doctor nodded muttering something that Pietro didn’t catch, and left the room.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, the helicopter’s waiting for me. But, _Mr. Maximoff_ ,” Stryker said already in the doorway, slightly lowering his glasses. “You better be here when I come back. Because if you’re not, when I find you—because I _will_ find you—you’ll wish you were never born.”

Pietro glared at him, his heart hammering feverishly inside his chest.

It was the rhythm of a promise:

_Not if I find you first._

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

Trapped in the agony he’d been left in, Pietro caught a breath and frantically tried to move his arms. He was trying to soften the impact of that fall but he was still chained and could not move. In fact, he could do nothing but wait for the moment his body would crash to the ground—and for it all to be over.

But the moment never came: he just kept falling. Over, and over, and over.

Every now and then, for a couple of seconds he was able to remember: he was not _really_ falling. He was still in his cell. He was just being poisoned and probably going to be killed soon— _but when?_

Then the pavement suddenly disappeared again and—again—he fell into the void. His body contracted in a violent spasm. His heart jumped in his throat and he chocked. He felt a desperate need of air but breathing was so painful. It felt as if a cold, gaunt hand was grabbing him from the inside, scratching his spine, grinding his ribs—smashing it all.

Pietro kept trying to hold onto reality, using all his strength and stubbornness to fight the hallucinations and ignore the pain and the torment—what an irony!—of being trapped in his own time perception, where every minute—and every _second_ —of agony seemed to last forever. But in the end, no matter how stubbornly he tried to ignore it, the pain was always there. It worsened and worsened, making every breath heinous, and unbearable, and Pietro started to fear he could not handle it. Not anymore.

_I must be strong. I must be brave. I must fight. I must live._

_For her._

But he was _so_ tired.

She would not forgive him for giving up, for breaking that unspoken promise they had secretly made to each other: _don’t give up and don’t leave—not without me_. She was going to be mad at him, Pietro knew that. He also knew he was going to miss her—oh, he was going to miss her _so much_! But then, what good would his life do? He’d been useless so far, he’d only make everything worse. Probably she’d be better off without him. Probably without the fear of losing him, she’d manage to run away. Wanda was clever enough to, and probably—

Pietro gasped and shivered, completely overwhelmed with the dismay of what would actually mean to leave her, to fall into the darkness, for real, forever—and alone.

If there was in the universe a worse feeling than this one, Pietro couldn’t tell, but, dreadful as that prospect was, he had no strength left to fight anyway. ~~~~

He had fought so hard already. He had tried—he truly had. Now he had to let go. He _needed_ to, and, finally, he felt like he was grasping _how_.

He just had to surrender.

In front of his closed eyes, two figures started to appear. Smiling a bitter smile, Pietro welcomed his umpteenth hallucination: it was Django, and Mama was there too. They were dancing in the kitchen. With Wanda, Pietro had sneaked out of his bedroom and looked at them dancing: his father’s feet were entwined with Mama’s, shifting gracefully on the white floor’s tiles upon the rhythm of a song that Django was whispering, like a secret, into Mama’s ear. The kitchen’s half opened door casted those shadows on the corridor’s wall, and the two black figures got united in an undistinguished long and thin silhouette. A magic creature dancing all by itself on the wall of a house that no longer existed—a ghost.

Wanda had hugged him.

_Will we dance like this, when we’re grownups?_

_Yes_ , Pietro thought. _We will._

His body crushed to the ground.

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

Wanda gasped as if all the air had suddenly left her lungs. Her body jerked on the cot and her fingertips grabbed so violently the metal bars that she felt a couple of nails breaking.

Warm blood dropped down from her fingertips while she tried so desperately to breathe.

She rolled on her left side and fell on the floor, choking.

 _No_.

A cold, heinous loneliness swallowed her. She’d never felt anything like that, she never even imagined that something like that pain, that terrifying, hopeless sadness could exist. 

_No. No no no no no._

The room started to tremble and after a couple of seconds vibrations became violent shakes.

A earthquake, maybe. Or maybe something worse—maybe that was the end of the world.

She didn’t mind.

Panting, Wanda shut her eyes and with her fingers started to scratch the skin of her neck, and then her chest, as if she was trying to reach her own heart: it was hurting so much she felt the need to grab it and hold it tight in her hands.

 _Don’t leave_.

A deafening thud made her flinch, and she opened her eyes once again: the door disappeared, sucked away from an extraordinary, unnatural wind. Wanda’s hair fluttered wildly in front of her and through the strands she glimpsed a man: he was standing in the doorway, and his feet weren’t touching the ground. His eyes were cold and sharp, made of ice.

Maybe he was a God. Or the Devil.

He moved his fingers and opened his right hand toward her, inviting her to take it.

Wanda jumped to her feet, her sore heart beating madly, desperate for living. She was frightened, but she didn’t care if that was a man, a saint, or a demon. There was no time to lose.

“Please, help me!” she cried to her unknown savior. “He’s dying.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Good morning, princess,” Django entered the room, and his white smile enlightened his face like every day, as if nothing bad had ever happened to them and their life was just the same, happy, old one. He kissed Wanda on her cheek.

 _Princess_. That nickname was nothing new: Tate had been calling her since she was a little girl but recently he did it almost obsessively—as if by doing so he could erase that other word.

 _Witch_.

Wanda knew her father’s intentions were good, he was always so sweet and kind to her, and he never, not even once, gave her the impression that he was blaming her for all that mess. But every time he called her  _princess_ , Wanda only felt like being reminded of everything that she was, actually,  _not_.

“Good morning, Tate” she answered, smiling back. “Where’s Pietro gone?”

“He went out to take some wood for the fireplace.”

Wanda made a grimace.

“He didn’t wait for me.”

Tate put his hands on her shoulders and sighed.

“You know your brother, he likes being busy and he was bored, so I gave him something to do. Anyway,” he went on while his smile widened further, “I bet he’ll be here quite soon.”

Wanda nodded, making her best to hide her disappointment. Lately, Pietro behaved towards her as if she was made of glass, and even though he was almost always beside her, she felt clearly that their relationship had changed—because  _he_ had changed: he had become much more confident and serious, he had stopped sharing with her his worries, stopped wandering with her in bizarre nocturne fantasies, and every time she tried to talk serious to him, he would only tell her that  _she had nothing to worry about_ , or that  _he’d see for that_ , or the other kind of things that Mama or Tate would say. But Pietro was her twin, he was supposed to be her equal, not a sort of second-father, or a bodyguard.

But then, just like her father’s, Wanda knew Pietro’s intentions were good and, annoying as his attempts to keep her in a bubble could be, she knew too that she would never find the courage to tell him straight in his face that it wasn’t working, that nothing could make her forget the way all those people had stared at her that day and—what was worse—the way  _he_  had stared at her: with his heart broken.

Bored and restive, Wanda put on her coat and went outside. As she entered the woods, snowy air bit her face and she closed her eyes for a moment, savoring that sensation. She’d always loved winter but now, as her thoughts started to wander in her old life’s memories, melancholy dragged her away. She missed going to school. She missed her neighborhood too, and the town with its illuminated streets and all the shops and the people chattering around her.

She missed her home, her  _before._ When she wasn’t scary, when people didn’t call her  _witch_  and glare fearfully at her—and when Pietro was just Pietro and they would spend half of the night teasing each other and giggling under their duvets.

 

 

 

Time seemed to stop when, on her way back home, she glimpsed her brother staring at the doorway of their new, temporary home. Perhaps, in another moment, she would have found his expression even funny—it was so weird!— but now, it just made her feel sick. She had chills in her bones, and not for the cold.

It was a matter of very few instants and Wanda, from where she was, couldn’t see what Pietro was looking at and could not tell why he was standing frozen still with his eyes wide open in horror, grabbing the pile of logs he’d collected as if it’d been a precious treasure. She could only see the left corner of the porch, and her parent’s feet, leaping out of the threshold sill, entwined as if they’ve been dancing—but lying on the floor.

Mama’s left ankle was twisted in abandon, and her red shoe had partly slipped out of her heel.

Petrified, Wanda tried to call her brother’s name but no sound came out: the dark red liquid dripping from the doorway stairs had sealed her lips together so that she couldn’t say a word.

What happened next, before the world turned black and their nightmare began, Wanda would never be able to recall exactly. She thought she saw black boots shifting silently behind her brother’s back. She thought she’d heard shots.

She didn’t remember seeing Pietro fall down, she didn’t know if she’d screamed or run, or tried to.

The only thing she could vividly remember were the logs that her brother had been holding falling on the snowy soil like a handful of light, dead leaves. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Please,” the girl repeated.

It had been a long time since Erik had seen eyes like those: big and bright, of an astonishing red-veined green—mesmerizing. They weren’t showing any fear, not a hint: skinny and shocked as she was, the girl was standing in front of him with her back straight and her chin up, and hadn’t hesitated a single instant to spoke to him.

Desperate, but not frightened.

_Maybe she recognized his savior._

“Take her,” Erik said to Mystique who was standing near the door. “And I’ll take the boy.”

“Third underground floor” she reminded him without turning her head, as she moved to reach the brown-haired girl. But the girl didn’t let Mystique take her arm.

“No!” she yelled. “I’m not going anywhere without my brother!”

“He’ll take care of it,” Mystique said in her best German, “we’ll only slow him down, and we’ve got to fly.”

And then the girl, Wanda— _his_ _daughter_ —stepped forward and dared to grab his wrist. She did not speak another world, she just stared at him: her lips were trembling, but her eyes sparked with fire, and they spoke clearly enough for Erik to understand.

A beg, a promise—a threat.

He felt like smiling, even though his expression hadn’t changed at all. “Don’t worry my dear,” he whispered, “I’m not going anywhere without your brother either.”

 

 

 

Erik accelerated his pace. Mystique was not sure that having killed everyone in the facility had been enough:  Stryker was not there and if someone had had the time to alert him, he could have sent backups. But, in the end, that was not what was upsetting Erik: he was just mad he’d missed the chance to crash that disgusting sapiens’ skull under his boot—exactly like the roach that he was.

As for the facility, it was exactly as he’d expected it to be, even if seeing it with his own two eyes was a different story and was unleashing, slowly but steadily, all his anger: he should have prevented that from ever being built, or conceived even.  He could have, if allowed to. But the one person that could’ve helped him in that had refused to listen, so obsessed he was with that idiotic dream of his: a world where humans and mutants could live together in peace.

Madness. Weakness. And that horror was the result—a monster born from their hesitation.

Blocks of reinforced concrete fell loudly on the floor as Erik walked through the third underground floor’s corridors, exposing the rooms and making his research easier. Eventually, he found the room he was looking for: it was armored, and kept completely in the dark. Erik heard the boy’s breaths—irregular and oddly quiet—before the corridor’s neon lights, entering the room like long white tongues, revealed the shape of a body.

He could hardly see the boy but, since his body was almost entirely buried in metal, Erik could _feel_ him, almost as if the iron fist the boy was trapped in was his own.

With a small gesture, the Master of Magnetism dismantled all the metal restraints and, free from all that weight, the boy’s body collapsed to the ground. Erik could finally take a proper look.

Just like his sister, the boy seemed somewhat older than his age, and yet they both retained something childish in their features, something delicate, and fragile.

Something that made Erik uncomfortable.

Erik recoiled a bit, looking at the way the boy was trembling: his whole body was shaken by small but violent contractions, his breaths were weak and clearly difficult, his pupils were dilated. He was staring at something, but he was not seeing anything: he was completely unresponsive. Kneeling down, Erik took the boy’s chin in his hand and shook him, pointlessly trying to wake him up.

The girl had not spoken in vain: the boy _was_ dying.

That was his son, Erik thought. These were his children but he was no longer a father, and as he lifted that body from the ground, the only thing he could feel was his anger growing, and his power—his connection with all the energy that that planet held—growing with it, making that whole enormous building vibrate and crumble like wastepaper in a fireplace. ~~~~

Madness. That’s what his old friend’s dream was: the whim of a child grown in a golden palace.

But Erik, whose innocence had been forever locked away behind the dark bars of a high iron gate with a writing on the top, of course knew better, and now, as he left that heinous place holding the almost lifeless body of his son in his arms, the awareness that—despite it all—he’d let Charles sow the seed of doubt in him was devouring him, running through his veins like a river of fire.

This was what the world wanted for mutants: suffering, agony.

Oblivion. 

Children in chains, tortured until they met their death.

_This is what they’re after, Charles. But you will always be too blind to see it._

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

That damn bird nearly bumped into his face and, taken by surprise, Pietro instinctively stepped back. Wrong move, of course: behind him there was nothing, and the gravity—what a merciless bitch—punished him for that miscalculation.

On the one hand, the fall seemed never-ending: Pietro felt like he’d stared at that cloudy blue sky forever while the void swallowed him whole. On the other hand, he had barely the time to take a breath before his body hit the ground.

Then there was a disturbing silence and he saw nothing but white. His ears started buzzing and the next thing he knew was the pain.

Pietro had realized that his father was there only when a huge pair of arms had lifted him from the ground.  

 _Now, son, can we all agree that you do not have wings?_ Tate said that and tried to laugh, but his voice was so unusually shaky that Pietro felt worried. And sad. And guilty.

“Ta-te,” he whispered. His head hammered horribly and he didn’t manage to say the  _I‘m sorry_ that he’d planned to say. Pietro struggled to open his eyes but couldn’t see anything clear—he was too weak. Only a doubt and a weird feeling troubled him: was that really his father holding him into his arms?

Of course it was him.

Who else could have been?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, I've been a bit busy and so was my beautiful beta reader. I hope you enjoyed this story so far! I'm kinda working on a sequel...we'll see! Thanks a lot for still being there and for your support! Of course I'd love to hear from you and what you think about the story <3  
> Cheers! Enry

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading this.  
> Obviously kudos and comments are enormously appreciated.  
> Bisous <3


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